In the past three years, Texas Appleseed and its pro bono partners have improved hurricane victims’ access to legal services and participated in legal challenges to the Federal Emergency Management Administration's (FEMA) unfair denial of home repair and utility benefits for evacuees. Texas Appleseed is currently focused on long-term housing recovery using block grant funds, the future of public housing in storm-damaged Galveston and ongoing heir property issues. Texas Appleseed is urging the State of Texas to develop an Action Plan that prioritizes using a significant share of the $1.3 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) hurricane relief earmarked for Texas to rebuild affordable housing. Texas Appleseed’s key achievements follow. Preserving Homeownership for Low-Wealth Families • Texas Appleseed's early involvement in Gulf Coast Recovery work involved setting up clinics in Houston to assist evacuees with filing appeals to receive housing benefits. Texas Appleseed also co-sponsored a Hurricane Housing Forum in Houston that attracted over 800 hurricane evacuees. • Working with a network of state and local organizations, Texas Appleseed succeeded in convincing the Texas' Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery Program to dramatically shorten its application for disaster relief and accept an Affidavit of Heirship as proof of ownership interest in damaged property — thereby removing a major obstacle to timely repair of low-income housing. • Texas Appleseed and other organizations convinced the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FEMA to develop a policy making benefit applications and other critical information more easily accessible to hurricane disaster victims who are deaf or hard of hearing. Litigation • Texas Appleseed has been involved in three class action suits against FEMA, and has petitioned the Public Utility Commission of Texas to prevent hurricane evacuees from having their power cut off in the middle of the Texas summer. • Texas Appleseed testified in a successful lawsuit, filed against FEMA by Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid that established attorneys could enter a Disaster Recovery Center to advise or represent hurricane victims in claims against FEMA. • A coalition of advocacy groups, including Appleseed, filed a class action lawsuit, Ridgely v. FEMA, in April 2007 challenging FEMA's denial of benefits and attempt to recover alleged benefit overpayments without providing an opportunity for recipients to appeal or challenge. In August 2007, a district court judge entered a preliminary injunction instructing FEMA to follow due process laws. • Texas Appleseed enlisted pro bono partner, Greenberg Traurig LLP, to challenge enforcement of an ordinance in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, to evict low-income hurricane evacuees from FEMA trailers that were on private property. Working with Appleseed, the Loyola Law School Clinic and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Greenberg Traurig attorneys conducted research and drafted claims for a potential class action suit; thus, pressuring Jefferson Parish to hold hearings on this issue and making litigation unnecessary.